Gallifreyan Girl
by kanyebest
Summary: When Maeve lost her sister, it was as if the world had ended. After reaching out the Doctor, Maeve is introduced to a world of horror and heartbreak, in which she is manipulated into believing in just one thought: she must kill the Doctor.
1. Prologue

Maeve sat, cross-legged, in the centre of the testing room, biting her lip. She took the yellow pill from the tray presented to her, and chose to swallow it dry. In her head, she was running through a dark forest, thick with wildlife and foliage. From behind the bushes beside her sprang a sprightly and unusually confident fawn. It ran alongside her for a few hundred meters. During this time, the fawn appeared to age a startling amount: initially, its features were delicate, undeveloped a full of youth; however, after what seemed like only a few minutes, its legs doubled in length, and the early signs of antlers began to appear on its forehead. But Maeve kept running; she barely noticed that the fawn beside her was becoming a stag.

She reached a fork in the path. For the first time in what seemed like a long time, Maeve paused. She tucked her hair behind her ears and looked around. The deer at her side had disappeared, and she was left to choose a path alone. In the distance, along the left fork, the sky was a deep lobelia blue: down the right fork lay only darkness.

So rich was the air above her with branches and leaves that the sight of the sky caused Maeve quite a shock. Like a red flag to a bull, it flared inside of her a hot, white anger that spurred her on. She yearned for that sky, not in a romantic, frolicking-through-a-wildflower-meadow kind of yearning; rather Maeve longed to smack every inch of the vivid royal blue from the sky like dust from a carpet. She grabbed whatever was to hand (a thick, gnarly tree branch from the forest floor) and began walking, quickly and with purpose. She had almost reached a peaceful clearing, fraught with many woodland creatures, flowers and a fine spring, when she was stopped in her tracks for a second time. Before her, tied by the hooves to the two tallest trees she had seen so far, was the deer she had travelled with earlier. Its eyes were glazed and unfocused, and no longer was it breathing, nor was it galloping freely through the undergrowth. Its antlers were not fully grown, and the innocence of a life only partially lived, lingered in the air around him. It tainted the sky in the distance. No longer did it draw Maeve in; it repulsed her...she knew what was to blame.

Maeve dropped the stick. She roared in anger to the heavens, and her heart began to pound. Her breathing became erratic and the darkness took her over...

Mr Portas laid a hand on her shoulder. Rather than providing comfort, it was rough and cold like the hide of a rhino. Maeve, although repulsed by his greasy touch, found herself drawn to him, although he was her only ally.

In a monotone voice he asked her if she had gotten the message.

"Yes," she answered, gazing deeply at her own reflection in the window. "I have to kill the Doctor."


	2. Chapter 1

Maeve awoke wrapped in thin, grey hospital sheet, to a knock at the door. Wearing only a gown, tied several times at the back, she padded apprehensively towards the noise. A thin glass panel, threaded through with tiny crosshatched metal wires for support, split the door down the middle. Through it, she made out the silhouette of a tall man with very little hair. He was wearing a grey pinstriped suit and a bowler hat. She had been introduced to him several times before. Mr Portas. He was her temporary care worker. It was unusual for state custody to be granted to individual adults, and less so for them to be assigned a social worker. However, Maeve had been declared a "special case" by several experts, and without consultation, she was sectioned and placed under the care of a one Mr Paul Portas.

Through the glass, their eyes met: hers was cold and icy blue; his, a disconcertingly warm amber colour, that seemed at odds with his large and chiselled jaw and unfriendly mouth. His eyes, from the moment they'd met, reminded Maeve of a beautiful gem set in a particularly unpleasant ring. In a way, once she'd begun to get to know him, this could also have easily been applicable to his personality. For one so endowed with wits and intelligence, Paul Portas, like the way the hospital door was ran through with glass, had a well disguised violent streak, which, although seldom displayed, was well known. Maeve had seen it a few times; when dealing with her nurses, in the queue in the cafeteria...Though never had Maeve allowed herself to fall into the trap of getting on Mr Portas' bad side. Consistently, since the day she had fallen back to Earth, had she tried to maintain an amicable (if not friendly) relationship with the man who effectively held the key to her freedom.

He knocked again. Maeve pulled the door towards her, and with a slight stick and a whoosh, it opened. Portas smiled grimly. He knitted his greasy brow and moved forwards, so that Maeve felt his hot breath on her face.

"May I come in?" he asked, feigning courtesy.

Maeve smiled and nodded in response. Moving to one side, Portas shuffled into the room and took a seat on one of the six blue benches that sat by the great window that overlooked the hospital car park. It was with great hesitation that Maeve opened the blinds that framed the panelled window each morning. Although happy to have something to distract herself in the long hours she spent waiting between meals and the occasional visit from government officials, the window acted almost solely as a reminder that independence was out there, but just a little out of her grasp.

Portas smiled again, and rubbed his hands together; Maeve took a seat on her bed. She knew he was thinking of the "progess" they had made the preceding morning. She had tried to think of anything but that. In a way, Maeve felt manipulated; as if they were using her pain in order to take down a force they had wanted rid of for years.

"We think it's time," he said. Maeve shuddered at his use of the word "we"; it was nauseating for her to imagine that men in suits and women in pencil skirts decided, behind closed doors, her fate. "For you to be moved to a select government compound."

Maeve had to try very hard to maintain her straight face. Although the words "select government compound" were empty and practically meaningless, the freedoms, and potential freedoms, she was imagining exploded like fireworks in her mind.

Reading her like a book, Portas continued:

"This, of course, would simply be a small apartment in a _highly regulated_ government block on the Isle of Wight. But you would be allowed to explore the village by yourself, permitting, of course, that you don't lose sight of your...target..."

Maeve smiled thinly. None of Portas' promises had done anything to reawaken her eyes; they'd lain dormant of emotion for a long time. However, she felt more alive in that moment then she had done for months.

"Don't worry," she assured him. "It's my number one priority."

It was dark outside, and an arctic wind was blowing persistently down the street. Lily pulled her lapels together once more and kicked disdainfully at the snow. Towards her in the moonlight ambled a pair of washed out headlights. She picked up her bag and heels and slung out her arm, praying the driver would see her in the gloom.

The bus eased to a stop; the doors opened with a swish. She heaved herself up the stairs. Casting a glance up the centre aisle of the bus, she noticed it was semi-full: half a dozen old ladies, each with steely grey hair and matching pink, floral cardigans, snapped their necks to face the front. They all looked physically very different: some were tall, some thin; one was mixed-race...However, each of them had the same intense expression and a pair of the same, piercing grey eyes.

It wasn't until the driver asked for her money, a few moments later, that she realised she'd been staring. She shuddered as they continued to look at her and handed the driver a five pound note.

"You got the two pence?" he asked, politely.

"No...sorry..." she muttered, in reply.

He handed her change across, and her ticket, and she nervously took a seat towards the front. It was a short ride back home, but the eyes of the six elderly women, occupying the back seats like sickly yobs, bore into her back, making the ten minute journey feel like hours.

Every so often she would turn to find them still glaring, open mouthed. She clutched at her belongings: the bag she got for Christmas and the black stilettos she wore for work. She hated them so much she'd carry around a pair of battered old trainers to change into as soon as she left the office.

She tried looking out of the window as a distraction. To no avail. The lights inside the bus ensured that she saw, not scenery, but grey reflections in the glass.

The bus suddenly slowed to a stop. She cupped her hands to the window. Instead of the normal, concrete pavements, surrounding the bus were the tallest trees and bushes, silhouetted against the moon.

Pulling herself up, she walked to the driver's compartment. She rounded the corner to find the driver's seat empty, save for a small puddle of water by the gearstick.

She lost it; she couldn't help it. She started banging on the doors of the bus, screaming and crying for help. The ladies at the back started moving towards her in a pack.

"Oh, dear!" they said, mechanically. "Don't worry! We don't want to hurt you! We just want you to rest!"

"R...Rest?" she whispered.

They smiled instinctively and reached out their hands. Lily flinched. Then it all went black...

"The tape stops there," Maeve said. "There's no more footage. They found the bus just across from Clapham Green the next morning, fifteen miles off its usual route. There was no one on board. All that was left was a couple of damn seats and these,"

She held up her sister's stilettos. They were still clean, slightly worn in places, but very well-kept. The police had returned them as soon as they realised that Lily wasn't coming back any time soon. They said they were no use to their investigation: they were Maeve's last reminder of the sister who she'd loved.

"There were no further reports of the old women," Maeve cut-in, just as he was about to open his mouth.

He closed it again, slowly, and scratched at the nape of his neck. His earpiece buzzed and chattered. He pressed a button and murmured "not now". He pulled himself up straight and looked me in the eyes.

"Why contact me?" he questioned, slowly. He looked almost impressed, as if getting hold of him was a difficult task: something to be rewarded.

"Because I heard you could really help," she replied, quietly. "And I could really use some help."

My voice cracked. The first example of emotional weakness I'd displayed in well over a year. Since Lily's disappearance, Maeve had put on a front: dealing with chauvinist policemen and cockney PI's had hardened her to such an extent that she was rarely unsettled by the Lily-shaped hole in her heart. But this seemed like her last hope. No trace of her sister had been found. None. It was as if she never made it out of the bus; yet, there was no evidence of her having died there. No evidence in fact, besides the CCTV tape, of anyone having been in the bus with her: not even the driver.

Captain Jack Harkness grinned broadly, his handsome features expelling concern. His office was clean and glassy, and on his desk, a curious rock formation glowed green, then pink, then fiery red.

"If I agree to help you, you're going to see things...experience things you could never imagine. It could really mess with your head. You're already fragile enough..."

Maeve cut him off with a glare, as steely as the girders that ran along the ceiling. Her fists curled into balls and her heart filled with icy cold anger.

"I'm not fragile," she spat through gritted teeth. "Don't you dare just become another man in a long line of men who've just decided that by looking at me they know who I am."

She lowered her gaze and her voice, her final claim taking the form of a whisper.

"Please do not underestimate me."

Jack swallowed and raised his eyebrows, touched. He reached over files and paperwork and picked up the handset of the stainless steel telephone in the centre of the desk. Pleased and relieved, I stood back, hands on hips, as he pressed, not numbers, but a single rectangular blue button on the side.

"This is Jack," he said, not taking his eyes off me. "And I could really do with a Doctor!"


	3. Chapter 2

Over the course of the past few years, Maeve's life had changed substantially. She had lost her sister, first and foremost. The pain of the uncertainty surrounding Lily's disappearance still lay beside her even in her clinical new apartment. It kept her up at night, and more often than she would have liked, she found herself staring up at the stars, still awake at 3am, willing her to return.

Nowadays, Maeve's life was ordinary. Every weekday, between the hours of 11am and 3pm, she partook in training, readying her for eventual mission. As she grew stronger, she began to realise more and more the power she seemed to have. Back at the hospital, she was isolated; alone. Here, she was continually surrounded by armed personnel, soldiers and even occasionally cabinet ministers made the long ferry journey to her island enclosure as she made her way around the village and shopped for groceries. She felt more like an adult here, despite the armed guard, then she ever had done before. Weirdly enough, the small doses of independence she's been slowly fed by Portas had been extremely beneficial. By shopping, cleaning and sorting bills for herself, she'd been given tastes of a life she'd never before experienced. Both she and Lily had been babied by their parents: rich, city workers, the son and daughter of yet more rich, city workers; they had lavished little time and much money on their two daughters. They built within them, a sense that the world would always provide for them. Lily's resulting disdain for hard work and her perception that everything she wanted would just land on her plate without effort, lead to her dropping out of college and going to work for a call centre on the Strand, and later, Maeve always thought, her death. Such was their grief at having a dropout in the family, Maeve's parents cut their funds. Lily would probably have never gotten that bus had she the money for a taxi home...

Maeve had been at the facility for a little under three months. The days in this safe, clean environment seemed to blur into one. In her small, but comfortable one bedroomed apartment, she spent her days watching the pre-approved television shows that flickered on the grey television set in her lounge: these included a filtered news programme, In the Night Garden and a curious but repetitive comedy, based in a hospital waiting room. She also had taken up several hobbies: on Tuesday evenings, she played doubles tennis with an old lady from down the corridor by the name of Maggie, who'd witnessed something alien that she wasn't allowed to discuss; a young ex-soldier who had sold some story about Al Qaeda to the Sunday Express, and an older man, by the name of Wilf, who's back-story was seemingly mundane. Before settling down to sleep, she'd read (Shakespeare or Dickens; occasionally one of the Bronte sisters) and recently she had discovered a great pleasure in knitting. It seemed to Maeve that, rather than there being something wrong with her, that she had information that would be dangerous if left in the public domain; she was merely in the midst of an extremely early retirement. At nineteen, she was the youngest on the compound (excluding the two tiny girls from apartment 4A; Maggie's wee grandchildren), which made the entire experience seem like some bizarre oldies cruise.

"You're far too young to be hanging round here," Maggie often chuckled on a Tuesday. "It's a blooming disgrace! You need to be off living your life, not cabbaging away here..."

Maeve was frequently the topic of conversation, not only during tennis, but in the cafe on the high street; in the crowds that lined the edges of the five-a-side pitch; in the whispers of the passers-by as she walked down the wine aisle in Summerfield's...it was unusual for someone so young so be shrouded in so much mystery. Ordinarily, girls like her would be rehoused, given new identities...Maeve's continued appearance, in addition to Portas' weekly visits, sparked much speculation about the government's plans for her.

Today was not a Tuesday. Rather, it was Friday. On Fridays, Maeve usually ate in the shade of the oak trees that lined the park. In these summer evenings, the majority chose to eat indoors, sheltered from the searing heat by the standard issue air conditioning units built into the walls. However, this particular Friday was different. Although it was August, the air was pleasant, rather than thick, and a welcome breeze cut through the cloudless sky. Yearning for a picnic, or perhaps simply missing their Wimbledon strawberries and cream, people had turned out in their masses to eat in the park. By the time Maeve ambled over to her normal space (on a particularly mouldy bench by the boules pitch) the area was so crowded that her stomach churned uncomfortably at the inevitable need for conversation. She turned away. Retracing her steps back to her apartment, she noted the emptiness of the streets. It was as if all of the life of the town had been sucked out then spat back down in the park. Maeve tutted. It was typical that the weather would shift on a Friday. Now she'd be sucked back into knitting the cardigan she was part-way through, or worse, she's become absorbed in that horrific comedy...

Maeve wobbled through the corridors of her building, her salad box dinner in-hand. When she'd gotten her front door open, (she habitually struggled with the old lock; the key more often than not scraping layer after layer of skin from her fingers), and switched on the TV (the noise helped her feel less alone), she happened to look out of the window. The previous breeze was no longer; the evergreen bushes in the communal garden stood still. The sky too, changed from its earlier cerulean delight to an all-too recognisable navy, reflected in the window panes along the alley. Maeve shivered and twitched the nets. Over the outside summer hum, which seeped through the gaps between the glass and the setting – the dull roar of lawnmowers, children laughing and the occasional ice cream van – Maeve's ears pricked at a familiar sound coming from the television...

She turned slowly. A manically large grin and gingham bowtie filled the screen, replacing a piece on whale fishing. The man said only three words, but it was enough to send Maeve into a spiral nerved and nausea:

"Don't trust them!"

Maeve and Jack stood on the roof. She looked over at him and noticed his thick greatcoat, then back at her thin yellow cardigan that sat limply over the top of a floral tea dress. She wished she'd dressed more weather-appropriately. Although, it would never have crossed her mind to dress appropriately for standing in a puddle on the roof of a government building, surrounded by an armed guard and several helicopters, adding significantly (and sorely) to a harsh cross wind.

Maeve was just about to ask what they were waiting for when Jack turned to her and smiled. He dragged his hand through his hair and laughed, bent double.

"He's always late," he muttered, to no one in particular. "He's _always _late!"

Suddenly, the air fell still. Although she could see the helicopter blades still turning, Jack still laughing, it was as if the noise were off. And then, in a matter of seconds, a noise like the air was being sucked out of the world rang through the city skyline. The light from the slowly setting sun began to flicker, surreally, as the space before her eyes slowly was filled by what could only be described as a blue wooden phone-box with a siren perched on top. Little by little it appeared, at first, so transparent that Maeve questioned that she saw anything at all, but then it intensified. Eventually, it came to a rest. Nothing else moved. Jack waved away the armed guard, the helicopters and the bystanders, and waltzed up to the door. He knocked firmly, and stepped back. It took a few minutes of shuffling from inside before the door popped open.

A man with a gawky grin and eyes that seemed too old for his face, poked his head around the doorframe. He tweaked his tweed bowtie, and adjusted his britches. Walking out of the box towards them, his smile never faltered, but his eyes darted from Jack to Maeve, searching.

"Hello!" he beamed. "You rang?"

Maeve's lungs felt as though they were on fire. She ran, and ran. From the outside...hell, even from the console room, it would be insane to even consider it possible to run this far. Nevertheless, she kept on at it, her brain pushing herself further than her body thought attainable.

Underfoot, a metallic cage separated her from numerous wires and electronic gadgets. The walls and roof were also metal, but rather than being shiny and silver, they were rough and sickly green in colour. Their puckered tops reminded Maeve of rolos, which in turn reminded her of the time she and Lily ate too many chocolates in the back of her mother's car, and threw up all over their grandmother's freshly prepared Sunday dinner...

Of what was chasing her, Maeve wasn't really sure. But when someone who spent their entire life running from horrors of his past screams run, hesitation is not an option. She and The Doctor had been together a relatively short time. Not much had been achieved. And yet Maeve felt closer to him than anyone else back on earth.

Maeve kept on running. She rounded a tight corner and fell backwards onto her bum as she tried to avoid colliding with a heavy steel door. It was sealed shut.

"Bugger!" she yelled, battering her fists futilely on the join.

To her left was a small panel, glistening with coloured lights and shapes. She looked at it and narrowed her eyes. She pressed her hand feverishly onto the panel, not caring what she pressed or even considering potential options. A small beep notified her of her success. She gave a small leap and cry of celebration, and she plunged into the darkness.

The only thing truly distinguishable about the room, was its lack of light. Maeve wasn't used to true darkness: the main street outside of her bedroom window ensured her definition of darkness cast everything in a iron brew-worthy orange glow, thanks to the streetlight that had plagued her adolescent sleeping pattern. She raised her hand in front of her face, but saw nothing. Carefully, she stretched both it and her left foot out ahead of her. Placing it down on solid ground, she groped the space in front of her, searching for a clue as to her whereabouts and praying that she wasn't about to run into something big and heavy. She was in luck. Nothing seemed to be about. Now her main concern was finding a light switch. Luckily, she thought, nothing that was behind her would be fortunate enough to break the lock as she had.

The wall was cool and flat. She ran her hands over it, stretching her limbs from floor to ceiling like a human starfish. Something nudged her right knee. Her initial repulsion and surprise faded to joy, as she knelt and ran her hands over a movie-style lever. She pulled...

A scream from over her shoulder alerted her to the presence of someone else. Maeve, still facing the wall, readied herself for the impact; but none came. Whatever it was still cackled from across the room. Slowly, Maeve pulled herself to her feet and turned around, her eyes half shut.

Maeve had seen pictures of medieval gaols in primary school textbooks: it was always the same, an old Dumbledorian, bearded man, stripped to the waist, chained by the wrists to a ceiling. They all wore the same, emaciated look on their faces, and even though they were modern drawings, they reeked of desperation, and desertion. Chained to the TARDIS in a similar way, breathing agitatedly, her bony, aged fingers entwined in her disturbingly grey hair, sat Lily. At the sight of her sister, tears rolled down Maeve's cheeks; Lily threw her head back, her eyes blazing a horrific red, and screamed, and screamed until her lungs ran out...

The door opened; The Doctor appeared. His face was stony white and his eyes were cast downwards.

"I got rid of the Yeti," he said, more quietly then I'd ever seen him. "That was some impressive running back th-..."

He was still speaking when she hit him.


End file.
